SOUTH CAROLINA LAWMAKER REVERSES COURSE TO HELP STATE PASS KRATOM REGULATIONS

As the data and science around kratom have evolved, lawmakers across the country have changed their tone and approach to the supplement. 

If a recently ratified law in South Carolina is any indication, a new era of kratom acceptance and regulation is just around the corner. 

South Carolina became the 16th state in America to pass robust kratom regulations with the passage of its own Kratom Consumer Protection Act (KCPA) as a stark example of how quickly the conversation around kratom is changing. Just years after the same state senator tried to propose a bill to ban kratom outright, the state now has a law on the books that is more lenient than the other states that have passed versions of the KCPA. 

And it’s only adding more fuel to the fire of advocates aiming to regulate kratom in a way that keeps consumers safe and protects the market from bad actors. 

Sen. Russell Ott was the primary sponsor of S.221 and introduced the measure after stalling out on past attempts to ban kratom outright. According to Ott, his reasoning behind both bills is the same: An unregulated market for a product like kratom leaves customers vulnerable to malicious actors. 

But as the science around kratom has shifted, Ott adjusted accordingly.  

“I didn’t know what it was three or four years ago, but I did notice that I was seeing signs for kratom,” Ott said. “I had constituents reach out to me and say they had family members using kratom and had some major concerns. I started diving into it and doing as much research as I could.” 

Unanimous Support in Both Houses

That change in perspective from a lawmaker who previously attempted to ban kratom allowed the bill to work its way through both legislative chambers in less than a month. The process started when the Senate’s Medical Affairs Committee reported the bill favorably with amendments and led to a 39-0 vote in favor of the bill nine days later. 

Two weeks after the hearing in the Senate, the House Committee on Medical, Military, Public, and Municipal Affairs heard testimony from Ott and made one minor change in the bill. This time, it only took a week to get the bill up for its final reading in the House where it passed 114-0. 

Five days after it was sent back to the Senate for concurrence, Gov. Henry McMaster signed the bill into law on May 12. With the amendment added in the House, the bill will take effect 60 days from that signature to give local kratom distributors time to adjust to the new regulations. 

In its original form, Ott’s bill had all the traditional elements of a KCPA: It banned adulterants and additives that enhanced kratom products, required robust labeling and banned all synthetic alkaloids in products considered to be kratom. As it was proposed, Ott also aimed to limit the amount of 7-hydroxymitragynine in what could be sold as a kratom product. 

That changed in the first committee stop for the bill. 

Advocates' Concerned Over Cutouts

In the Senate hearing, advocates for 7-OH products challenged the bill’s “fairness.” Although other states have enacted legislation specifically to target products with increased concentration of 7-OH, Ott would later testify that he was willing to make an exception to limit pushback to his proposed bill. 

“The reason that this is so important to me, and I hope is important to you, is because right now there is zero regulation around the sale of kratom in South Carolina,” he said. “So literally, a 13-year-old could walk into a store and buy whatever they wanted to buy.” 

That doesn’t mean Ott was unaware of the risk associated with products that the scientific community has said should not be labeled as kratom products. A group of researchers who have worked with the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse began to sound the alarm in 2016 and made a website in 2024 about 7-OH products as a resource for lawmakers and consumers. 

Other states, including South Dakota and Nebraska, have recently passed laws targeting 7-OH, another trend that Ott was aware of during his testimony. 

“It’s my understanding that there are derivatives that can be extracted from the actual leaf product itself,” Ott said. “This has been a piece of legislation that has gone across the country.”

Rather than listening to that science and keeping the bill in its original form, Ott instead pivoted to the version without limitations on 7-OH and credited that decision to the science being split. 

“I don’t think that there’s been enough evidence to go one way or another,” Ott said. 

When challenged on the logic of accepting 7-OH products, Ott defended his decision by pointing out that the law still banned synthetic alkaloids. However, he appeared unaware of how products with high concentrations of 7-OH are made. 

Research into 7-OH has shown that products made from pure kratom leaf have extremely low concentrations of that specific alkaloid. So while natural kratom products have a long history of historical use in Southeast Asia, products high in 7-OH potency are a relatively new phenomenon in American markets. 

Ott focused more on the products he perceived as the biggest threat–those with synthetic alkaloids. Ott did make sure that his bill required kratom producers to label the amount of each alkaloid in a product and said that if consumers wanted to avoid 7-OH products, this law would give them the information required. 

“My biggest concern was a product being synthesized in a lab somewhere then being marketed as a kratom product,” Ott said. “Instead of saying ‘You can buy this type but you can’t buy this type,’ we simply said you have to have clear labeling so everyone knows what they’re purchasing,” 

Ott concluded: “An adult over the age of 21 can make a choice on what they’re purchasing.”